Granny Inspiration

The sun is shining and Spring may actually be trying to spring around these parts.  *fingers crossed*

Sometimes granny color themes come from the oddest places...

 My sewing box.  I kept staring at it all last week.  Then it hit me!  A new granny square blanket.  Off to the yarn store I went and after an hour or so of hooky time, here is what I came up with:

 The colors are not true, but I think you get the idea!  The green is a bit more green and the grenadine is not so shocking.  I'll be combining these three-round squares with six- or seven-round squares.  Have a good Sunday everyone!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

I'll be making a big pot of corned beef and potatoes to share with my coworkers in the afternoon and maybe have a nip of whiskey in the evening!

In the meantime, I'll finish cleaning up the 5, 219 yarn tails on my  crochet Japanese flower piece.

Why I didn't hide them as I went along is beyond me.  I got so sick of it I put it aside for a day or so to make something else:

This little stash basket is a free pattern from the Purl Bee.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much yarn it holds when complete.  In the pic, there are 25 balls stuffed in it. Sugar 'n Cream yarn was the way to go with this one.  I only have about 100 balls of the stuff(no exaggeration).  The little flowers are Lucy's of Attic 24 fame.  Her blog is fantastic!  Here is what it looks like empty:

I love this!  Another one may be in the works soon.  Have a good Thursday everyone!

What?! Two posts in one day?

WARNING:  This is a brag post.

  One of the reasons I haven't been around is I've been working on a very special project -- ME.  The reason you never ever see pictures of me is because I don't want anyone to see how very large(okay, fat!) I've gotten over the last 3 or 4 years.  Finally fed up with wearing tents for t-shirts and buying my jeans on the fat girl side of the store, I joined a gym and started to watch what I was stuffing in my face all day, everyday.

  On December 1, 2010, I was 185 pounds and measured 43-41-44.  I'm only 5'1", so I was very round.  Today(as of about 1:00 p.m.), I weigh 143 pounds and my measurements are 37-32-37.  I'm girl shaped again!  How about that?  Believe it or not, it really wasn't that hard to do and it made this crappy winter fly by! Still not ready to post a picture of the new improved me, but I just had to get that out there. 

It's growing!

My throw for The Flower Bed CAL is growing!  Another two rounds of motifs after this one will give me a smallish, but gorgeous hexagon shaped throw.  It's also been a great stash killer so far, too!

The sun is shining today, so I thought taking a picture by the window would show the shine in the yarn. It's a mohair/nylon blend.  Alas, it was not to be.  I'm not really a pastels type of girl, but this is turning out way better than I had hoped!

edited to add:  If you click on the picture, you can kind of just barely see a bit of shine!

A yarny post

I've joined a Crochet Along here on Blogger called The Flower Bed.  Tons of gorgeous flowers!  I'm so sick of this dreary winter weather I thought it would be the perfect pick-me-up.  I'm making a small throw out of some stash laceweight yarn I've been hoarding forever.  For those of you who are interested, the pattern I'm using can be found here: Japanese Flower.  This absolutely gorgeous flower works up quickly and is easy to memorize.  My motifs are about five inches across using a 5 mm hook.  I'm going to have a lot of fun with this one! 

She's alive! Alive! Alliiiiiive!!

Howdy strangers! Just a quickie post to show I'm still around. I haven't forgotten about you all. Life has gotten in the way and then I just lost my tatting and blogging mojo for a while there. I actually tatted and have the pics to prove it!

 

The pale green heart is Dorcas's Heart. I think the woven picots really give it an interesting look. The little pink heart is Eva's Heart. Both patterns have been in one of my binders for years so I'm not sure what corner of the internet they came from.

This is Jon Yusoff's Hearts Entwined tatted using one of Tatskool's HDTs in sizd 80 from the Raspberry/Vanilla family.  I love that pattern.  Gorgeous.

And this is Tattyhead's 'Star Attraction' doily. I just started Round 6(or is it 7?) for the third time. It should be finished and blocked by this weekend. I keep either missing or making a join in the wrong place. I'm using some lovely Venus 40 thread I got at the Great Lakes Lace Guild's 'Love of Lace' event last year.

I'm still on a crochet kick. Blankets, blankets, blankets, with two more currently in the works...

Every single one of those afghans are made entirely with stash yarn and there are still three huge totes full of yarn in the craft closet! But I still don't have any yarn....or tatting thread. ;)